Andrew Parker (biblicist)

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Andrew Harry Parker (born 1942) is a British biblical scholar and social activist.[1]

Early life and education[]

Parker was born on 6 February 1942 in Calcutta, India, the youngest child of Tom and Barbara Gordon Parker. The family returned to England at the end of the Raj when Parker was three and a half and settled in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Parker attended Heronwater School in North Wales (1949–55) and Marlborough College, Wiltshire (1955–60). Thereafter, he studied physics and geology at the University of St Andrews followed by Divinity at New College, Edinburgh (The Divinity Faculty of The University of Edinburgh).

Working life and social activism[]

Parker was ordained as assistant minister of Dunfermline Abbey in 1967[2] but, in 1968, he went to France to join the Mission Populaire Evangelique de France (The French Protestant Industrial Mission) because he wanted to put his understanding of the Bible into practice.[3] Accordingly, while stationed at the Mission centre in Nemours, he first earned a living as a builders’ labourer and then worked as a silk screen press operator printing motorway signs in Montmartre, Paris.[4]

In 1972 he was put in charge of the Mission centre, working two days a week in the Sorbonne University, Paris to finance the centre's activities. He was joined by a group of young men and women, both Protestants and Maoists and together they started conducting grassroots political activities using the parish magazine Notre Foyer to give a voice to the voiceless within the community.[5]

The group's work irritated the local authorities[6] and, in the spring of 1973, as the editor of the parish magazine, Parker was denounced by the local mayor, Étienne Dailly, an important political figure and vice president of the French Senate, who took legal measures against him.[7] Parker and his centre became a cause célèbre as the news media, first in France[8][9] and then also in England[10] and Scotland,[11][12] started reporting what he and his team had been doing.

In the autumn of 1973, Parker was expelled from France "for political activities unbecoming in a foreigner",[13][14] an expulsion later rescinded in 1976 by the Conseil d’Etat.[15]

In 1975 he joined Revd John Miller, who was then minister of Castlemilk East Church, Glasgow, and his wife, Mary Miller, to work with them as community activists.[16] Initially, he earned a living as a garage mechanic and later worked as a porter in Leverndale Hospital where he was elected as a shop steward. In 1981 Parker and his wife, Pat moved to the east end of London where Parker was employed as a hospital porter at St Pancras Hospital until his retirement.[17]

Biblical work[]

Parker's maternal great-grandfather was The Very Revd Robert Rainy who was made Principal of New College, Edinburgh in 1874[18] and, unsurprisingly, Parker's mother introduced him to the Bible. This led Parker to take a course in Biblical Studies as an undergraduate and thereafter to go on to study Divinity which, in turn, expanded into a life-long fascination with the Bible. However, Parker's studies only served to reinforce his developing understanding that the Bible, in common with all other texts of the ancient Near East, is primarily a political book written in symbolical myth-language rather than a religious text.[19]

Parker has written chapters[20][21][22] for several publications of the Urban Theology Unit (re-named the Urban Theology Union), a member-led organisation of Christians in UK urban contexts.[23] He has contributed a number of articles[24][25] to Theology in Scotland, a peer-review contemporary journal of theology[26] and has written articles[27][28][29] for the Progressive Christianity Network Britain.[30] He has written a number of books[31][32] and these, along with his website, The Bible in Cartoons,[33] detail his Biblical research and interpretation.

His work is of interest in Christian Activist circles.[34][35][36]

Books and publications[]

  • Painfully Clear: the Parables of Jesus[31]
  • The Bible as Politics: The Rape of Dinah and Other Stories[32]
  • "Highly Unusual Ideological Magic" - Stilling the Storm: Contemporary Responses to Mark 4.35–5.1[20]
  • "The Shame We Don't Want to Face" - Acts in Practice Volume 2[21]
  • "The Servant in Deutero-Isaiah" - The Servant of God in Practice[22]
  • "The Logic of Parables" - Theology in Scotland Vol III no 2[24]
  • "Thirteen findings on the Bible" - Theology in Scotland Vol XVI no 1[25]
  • What does it mean that Christ died for our sins?[27]
  • Military Might[28]
  • What it Means to be a Marginal[29]
  • Charity as Beside the Point (Part 1)[37]
  • Charity as Beside the Point (Part 2)[38]

References[]

  1. ^ "PCN Blog Authors".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ Parker, Andrew (2013). The Bible as Politics: The Rape of Dinah and Other Stories. Circle Books. pp. viii. ISBN 978-1780992495.
  3. ^ Miller, John (2014). A Simple Life: Roland Walls and the Community of the Transfiguration. Saint Andrew Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-0861537136.
  4. ^ Parker, Andrew (1997). Painfully Clear: The Parables of Jesus. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-1850757719.
  5. ^ "Vives protestations contre la mesure frappant le pasteur Andrew Parker". Le Monde. 20 September 1973.
  6. ^ "M Etienne Dailly sénateur-maire de Nemours, annonce en conseil municipal qu'il porte plainte pour incitation au crime contre le pasteur du foyer de la Rue Dumée". L'Éclaireur du Gâtinais. 22 March 1973.
  7. ^ "Le senateur, maire de Nemours entame une action judiciaire contre le pasteur de la ville". L'Eclaireur. 22 March 1973.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ "A Nemours, un comité soutient Andrew PARKER". Libération. 1. 17 September 1973.
  9. ^ "Andrew Le Pasteur Maudit". Paris Match. 29 September 1973.
  10. ^ Hope, Francis (22 April 1973). "Scots pastor shocks a French town". The Observer.
  11. ^ "Hippie Pastor Told To Get Out". Daily Record. 3 September 1973.
  12. ^ "Scottish minister talks of expulsion". Glasgow Herald. 26 September 1973.
  13. ^ Roberts, Nesta (6 September 1973). "'Arbitrary' move to expel pastor". The Guardian.
  14. ^ Scott, Richard (18 September 1973). "France to expel minister". The Guardian.
  15. ^ No 13 du Greffe: Judgement by the Administrative Tribunal at Versailles dated 26 February 1975 annulling the earlier Expulsion dated 17 September 1973.
  16. ^ Mantle, John (2000). Britain's First Worker-priests: Radical Ministry in a Post-war Setting. SCM Press. pp. 246, 260. ISBN 978-0334027980.
  17. ^ Stilling The Storm: Contemporary Responses to Mark 4.35–5.1. Brill. 2011. pp. x. ISBN 978-1-905679-17-1.
  18. ^ "Robert Rainy".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ^ Parker, Andrew (2013). The Bible As Politics: The rape of Dinah and Other Stories. Circle Books. pp. 1–7. ISBN 978-1780992495.
  20. ^ a b Stilling the Storm: Contemporary Responses to Mark 4.35–5.1. Brill. 2011. pp. 33–38. ISBN 978-1-905679-17-1.
  21. ^ a b Acts in Practice. Brill. 2012. pp. 107–112. ISBN 978-1905679287.
  22. ^ a b The Servant of God in Practice. Brill. 2017. ISBN 978-1-905679-37-9.
  23. ^ "Urban Theology Union".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ^ a b Parker, Andrew (Autumn 1996). "The Logic of Parables". Theology in Scotland. 3 (2): 35–48.
  25. ^ a b Parker, Andrew (2009). "Thirteen Findings on the Bible". Theology in Scotland. 16 (1): 39–49.
  26. ^ "Theology in Scotland".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  27. ^ a b "What Does it Mean that Christ Died for our Sins". PCN Britain.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  28. ^ a b "Military Might". PCN Britain.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  29. ^ a b "What it Means to be a Marginal". PCN Britain.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  30. ^ "Progressive Christianity Network Britain".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  31. ^ a b Parker, Andrew (1997). Painfully Clear: The Parables of Jesus. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 978-1850757719.
  32. ^ a b Parker, Andrew (2013). The Bible as Politics: The Rape of Dinah and Other Stories. Southampton: Circle Books. ISBN 978-1-78099-249-5.
  33. ^ "The Bible for Beginners".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  34. ^ Hebden, Keith (2017). Re-Enchanting The Activist. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. p. 70. ISBN 978-1785920417.
  35. ^ "Links: now, let's go exploring..." St James's Church Piccadilly.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  36. ^ Powers, Alan (Autumn 2020). "The Bible in Cartoons" (PDF). UTU News.
  37. ^ "Charity as Beside the Point (Part 1)". PCN Britain.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  38. ^ "Charity as Beside the Point (Part 2)". PCN Britain.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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